- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
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Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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A North Korean delegation paid a surprise visit to the South for talks, and have agreed to hold more talks soon.
With all luck, maybe it can end with a whimper and not a bang? If the rumors are true and Kim Jong Un hasn't been in power for a long time, maybe those who actually are want to cut their losses before everything goes to hell. Then again, they could all ruin it tomorrow with the usual bellicose invective, but I don't think their military has the power to do anything besides marching in parades.
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Oct 5, 2014 11:03
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May 6, 2024 04:08
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
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Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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This is probably not a remarkable incident, but it does deserve note:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...e736_story.html
quote:Warships from the rival Koreas exchanged warning shots Tuesday after a North Korean ship briefly violated the disputed western sea boundary, a South Korean defense official said.
The shots were fired into the sea and there have been no reports of injuries and damage to the ships of either side, the official said on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.
Such exchanges are not uncommon at the sea boundary, the scene of several deadly maritime skirmishes between the Koreas in recent years. But the latest incident happened three days after a group of high-profile North Korean officials made a surprise visit to South Korea and agreed to resume senior-level talks.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday stressed the need to hold high-level talks on a regular basis, saying she hopes North Korea would show how sincere it is about improving ties.
The South Korean official said the North Korean ship was in South Korea-controlled waters for about 10 minutes before it retreated to its waters. He said a South Korea navy ship first broadcast a warning and then fired warning shots before the North Korean ship fired back at waters near the South Korean ship. The South Korean ship returned fire into the sea near the North Korean ship, the official said.
North Korean navy ships and fishing boats frequently violate the boundary drawn by the American-led U.N. command at the end of the Korean War in the early 1950s without the North’s consent. The line cuts North Korea off from rich fishing waters.
Sounds like a game of "Does this bother you? I'm not touching you."
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Oct 7, 2014 04:30
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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It wasn't just that Kim Jong Chol was too western, he tried to get into Japan on a forged passport to take his family to see Disneyland.
Edit: ah, damnit Google, it's Kim Jong Nam.
Auritech fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Oct 9, 2014
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Oct 8, 2014 05:12
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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South Korea thinks it's figured out Kim Jong-Un's absence.
quote:South Korea's spy agency said Tuesday it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's 6-week public absence, which set off a frenzy of wild speculation around the world.
The National Intelligence Service told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min. The aide said the spy agency also told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim's obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.
After last being seen in state media on Sept. 3, Kim reappeared on Oct. 14 hobbling with a cane, but smiling and looking thinner. The speculation during his absence was particularly intense because of the Kim family's importance to impoverished, nuclear-armed North Korea. The family has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.
It wasn't immediately clear how the information was obtained by the spy agency, which has a spotty track record of analyzing developments in opaque North Korea.
The agency also said North Korea has expanded five of its political prisoner camps, including the Yodok camp, which was relocated to the northwest city of Kilchu, according to Lim Dae-seong, an aide to ruling party lawmaker Lee Cheol-woo, who also attended the briefing. The spy agency believes the camps hold about 100,000 prisoners, Lim said.
He said the agency also believes that North Korea recently used a firing squad to execute several people who had been close to Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was considered the country's No. 2 power before his sudden purge and execution in December 2013.
In an intelligence success, South Korea's spy agency correctly said that Jang had likely been dismissed from his posts before North Korea officially announced his arrest.
However, it received heavy criticism when its director acknowledged that it had ignored intelligence indicating North Korea's impending shelling of a South Korean island in 2010. It also came under fire because of reports that it only learned of the 2011 death of then leader Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un, more than two days after it occurred when state media announced it to the world.
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Oct 28, 2014 14:53
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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It looks like there may be a new candidate in the Kim dynastic line of succession.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/27/world/asia/north-korea-politics/
quote:(CNN) -- The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been named as a senior government official by state media.
Kim Jong Un's younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was mentioned in an article posted by KCNA on Thursday, referring to her as a vice department director of the Central Committee of the governing Worker's Party of Korea.
The report by the official news agency said Kim Yo Jong was one of the government officials who accompanied the North Korean leader during a tour of a cartoon film studio.
North Korea threatens more nuclear tests
The development comes just weeks after Kim Jong Un resurfaced after more than a month out of the public eye.
After his absence throughout most of September, Kim seemed to reappear October 14, when North Korean state media published the first photos of him, in which the beaming Kim held a cane in his left hand as he gave "field guidance" at a newly built residential district.
Kim hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3. It was his longest absence from official events since he made his first public appearance in 2010, according to NK News, a website devoted to analyzing North Korea.
Before his disappearance, Kim was seen limping, prompting theories he was suffering everything from weight gain to gout. His absence fueled rampant speculation.
Not much is known about his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong.
She went to school in Switzerland and began appearing in public at party functions this year, said Victor Cha, author of "Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future."
"Clearly, an effort to slow-track her on to becoming somebody who is important within the system," he said about Kim Yo Jong's new job. "There really aren't many bodies left to carry on the sort of Kim clan rule."
Do you think it's possible if Kim Jong Un is edged out or assassinated that perhaps she could become the next in line? Does it say more about who may actually be pulling the strings?
The KCNA article in question is here, though the mention is at the bottom and with little detail.
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Nov 28, 2014 04:39
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
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Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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Something I found funny in the BBC News story on the North-South tensions:
quote:Military authorities say days later the North also restarted its broadcasting of anti-South propaganda.
However, some reports said that the quality of the North Korean loudspeakers is so bad that it is difficult to understand what they are saying.
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Aug 21, 2015 15:25
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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All this Kim Jong Nam stuff has been whipping the Japanese news media into a frenzy. It's been even supplanting Donald Trump's daily shenanigans as the top story.
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Feb 18, 2017 09:53
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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Fuji Terebi here in Japan aired CCTV footage of what looks to be the assassination (I watched it on TV Asahi). Sure doesn't look like a TV prank to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6lgVMUeWkM
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Feb 20, 2017 14:20
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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Have they identified what chemicals it was that killed him?
Japanese media is speculating that it was VX liquid.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:54
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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I guess NHK was right in their speculation. The fact that the DPRK is willing to produce any amount of VX just adds to the urgency of the situation. Not that anything will come of it of course, being that Syria lobs chlorine bombs all day and no one seems to care, but VX is particularly nasty and it means Kim Jong Nam is only the second person in the entire world to have been killed by it (the first being an enemy of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in the 90s).
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Feb 24, 2017 02:39
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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Is there indicators that NK produced the VX instead of acquiring it from another country's stockpiles?
According to Japanese media (and perhaps other sources, but I've been mainly watching Japanese news), the North Korean they arrested was a chemistry expert.
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Feb 24, 2017 05:01
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
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My only guess is that the North Koreans probably produced it locally. There were four others that the Malaysian government sought that already skipped town back to North Korea, so I imagine this plan was baking for quite a while.
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Feb 24, 2017 05:13
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
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Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
|
There are a lot of weird cults and religious organizations in Japan with highly educated business professionals and the like who belong to them. Part of it is the need for spiritual fulfillment in a regimented, automated society, the other part is taking old traditions and making them appealing in the modern age. Recently I got a leaflet in the mail for the Happiness Realization Party, a right wing organization run by a cult called Happy Science, and their founder was a stock trader with a few finance degrees. And to bring it back to Korea, they get educated people roped into cults too, what with Park Geun Hye's current predicament and the Church of Unification after all.
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Feb 24, 2017 08:20
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May 6, 2024 04:08
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- Auritech
- May 27, 2004
-
Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit
Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows
Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire
Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams
|
Looks like there's a possibility one of the assassins may have been affected by the VX after all.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/igp-one-suspect-in-kim-jong-nam-murder-suffered-effects-of-vx-agent
quote:KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 — One of two women suspected of killing the half-brother of North Korea’s leader with the highly toxic VX nerve agent also suffered its effects, Malaysia’s police chief said today.
“She was vomiting,” Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said in response to a question about whether the women felt the effects of VX, classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
He declined to elaborate.
Kim Jong-nam died after being assaulted at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13. Police have arrested a Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman suspected of smearing the chemical on his face. — Reuters
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Feb 24, 2017 10:53
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Oct 5, 2014 11:03
